Review and Giveaway of American Portraits Piano Book by Wendy Stevens

If a picture is worth a thousand words, what is an audio clip worth? In a departure from my typical process of reviewing new materials, I thought it would be cool to give you samplings of the actual music rather than mere words attempting to describe the music. In fact, didn’t some great musician say something to the effect that if we could describe it in words we wouldn’t have needed to compose the music in the first place? But I digress.

I recently had a chance to sit down and play through Wendy Stevens’ latest late intermediate collection, American Portraits, and rather than tell you about it I thought I’d give you a chance to hear little snippets. Then I can pretty much guarantee that you’ll love it as much as I do! Each piece is inspired by “forgotten heroes in American history” and includes a short paragraph about that person, accompanied by their portrait. Hence, the title. Enjoy listening to these brief excerpts and then check out the bottom of the post for how you can enter to win your own copy of this wonderful collection!

Letters From Abigail

Frontier Chorus

Morning at the Falls

Underground Railway

Midnight Ride

Summer on the Prairie

Hal Leonard is offering a free copy of American Portraits to one Music Matters Blog reader! Just leave a comment below to be entered in the drawing. The drawing will be held at noon (CST) on Thursday, December 9, using a random number generator. For fun, I’d love it if you include in your comment the piece you think you’ll like the best based on the excerpts above! 🙂